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Simply getting to West Virginia's wildest wilderness area is an adventure in itself.
No roads lead into the newly created Spice Run Wilderness, a 10-square-mile expanse of the Monongahela National Forest straddling the Greenbrier-Pocahontas county line northwest of Neola. Once you find your way to the edge of the wilderness, there are no trails to guide you into its interior.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Tomorrow is the 15-year anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act. The legislation protects 7.7 million acres of California desert and remains the largest wilderness and national park bill in the history of the lower 48 states. When President Bill Clinton signed the act, baby desert tortoises crawled on his desk to symbolize the protection being brought to the area.
A local conservation group praised city council approval Tuesday of a resolution supporting legislative designation of the Gold Butte Complex as a National Conservation Area with wilderness as a sign of progress.
The unanimously-passed resolution also urged Congress "to enact these designations and mandate that an effective management plan be implemented that secures the interests of neighboring jurisdictions."
Fifteen years have passed since the historic California Desert Protection Act set aside millions of unspoiled acres as wilderness, elevated Joshua Tree and Death Valley to national park status and created the Mojave National Preserve.
The legislation was the largest land conservation bill in the continental United States, hailed for its safekeeping of a long-ignored 6.37 million acres of landscape that counts "singing" sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones and world-class climbing boulders among its attractions.
Bills to create a wilderness area in southern Oregon and give greater protections to the Molalla River passed out of a House committee today.
The Devil's Staircase proposal, championed by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., would designate 29,650 acres of Coast Range forest as wilderness, the highest level of protection for federal lands.
And a bill from Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., would grant greater protections to a 21-mile section of the Molalla River under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
TELLURIDE - Three months after unveiling draft legislation that would protect large swaths of public lands in San Miguel, San Juan and Ouray Counties at the request of local governments and conservation groups, U.S. Rep John Salazar introduced the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Bill to the U.S. House of Representatives last week.
Commissioners in Beaverhead and Madison counties were surprised when U.S. Sen. Max Baucus signed on as a co-sponsor to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester's wilderness bill.
Commissioners from both southwestern Montana counties said they thought they had an agreement with Baucus that he would not voice any support for the bill until local governments were comfortable with it.
In part, the bill would set aside 505,000 acres of land as wilderness and require the U.S. Forest Service to harvest at least 7,000 acres of timber per year for 10 years.
ANTELOPE, Ore. -- A swap involving land at the site of the former Rajneeshee commune could lead to the creation of two new wilderness areas in Central Oregon.
The Bulletin newspaper of Bend reports that a Christian-based summer camp is working on the exchange that would also make roughly 15,000 acres of popular hunting grounds accessible to the public.
The trade would need to be approved by Congress.
Sen. John Tester started his day in Missoula with good news from fellow Sen. Max Baucus: The senior member of Montana's congressional delegation had co-signed the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
He followed that with a packed open house, at the Doubletree Hotel, on the draft legislation. Rather than have the audience address the room at large, Tester's staff set up tables and people delivered their comments one-on-one. About 150 people attended.
AVON - Colorado mountaineer Aron Ralston, famous for a bouldering mishap in Utah which he survived by amputating his own forearm, has been touring the state with other recreation proponents pushing for a huge new wilderness proposal called Hidden Gems.
